The Sane One
by The Sh33p
Summary: A look into the overly dedicated mind of Leon Tauros...


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Zoids.  
  
The Sane One  
  


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Four months ago, I met the single most potentially legendary Zoid warrior since Van Fleiheit and Raven. Kind of funny how fate introduces me to a cheap junk dealer who turns out to be the future Royal Cup Champion, isn`t it? I trip my Shield Liger over his scavenger truck and boom. The next day, he`s piloting a Zoid that won`t even let anyone else into it`s cockpit without trying to eject them through the hangar ceiling.   
  
His name is Bit Cloud. He is my unwitting protege, rival and probably one of the few people I consider true friends, even though he`s really only an acquaintance. He has all of the potential my father once attributed to me, he`s even considered a 'Chosen One,' a pilot who can bring out the full potential of an Ultimate X or any other Organoid-based Zoid. He is the warrior I should have been.   
  
He is the warrior I wanted to be.   
  
He is the warrior I thank god I`m not.   
  
My name is Leon Tauros, better known as the cryptic older brother of Leena Tauros, lesser but probably more accurately known to Jamie, Brad and my father as 'The Sane One," a nickname because Leena takes after the mildly psychotic tendancies our father say`s our mother had up until she was well into her mid-twenties.   
  
Bit Cloud is the warrior I wanted, might have and likely should have been.   
  
Bit Cloud is the warrior I thank god I`m not.   
  
He is compulsive, he`s smarter than he looks yet dumber than he acts. He`s a coward when confronted by my sister - but who in their right mind isn`t? - yet a noble, resourceful warrior on the battlefield. He`s destined for greatness because he was born for it.   
  
That`s not what I wanted, and it still isn`t.   
  
Four months ago, I made the most momentous decision of my life and allowed Bit Cloud to replace me. Four months ago, I became a free-lance warrior. I roamed across Zi, looking for trouble and often biting off more than I could chew. Four months ago, I started an odyssey that I never expected to even live through.   
  
Two months ago, my odyssey ended, because I stumbled upon a rarity.   
  
It`s/his name is the Red Blade Liger. It/he is a sub-Ultimate X, because it/he was once bound to an Organoid that was named Ambient. It/he won`t tell me any more, but I don`t mind. The Red Blade Liger is the partner I went on my odyssey to find, I was completed.   
  
My work could begin.   
  
I didn`t mention what my work was, did I?   
  
I am a warrior. A mercenary fighter in a four-tiered tournament that will never end. My goal was and is still simple, my goal coincides with that of Bit Cloud, but my goal is not an easy one.   
  
My goal is to become the best there is, the best there was and the best that there ever will be.   
  
My goal is not something I was born for.   
  
Bit Cloud and Vega Obscura, they were born for the goal, the chase to succeed and to climb to the top on a mountain of wrecked Zoids and burned out dreams.   
  
Me? I wasn`t born to easily grasp victory time and time again, I wasn`t born to be rightfully crowned a legend in my own time, a name spoken among the hall of greats like Bit and Vega are. I wasn`t born for it, that`s why I want it.   
  
The challenge begs for me. It calls to me, it screams for me to fight my way up that mountain and knock Bit and Vega off of it or take a place beside them - but not in their shadows. That`s why I do what I do.   
  
I am a Zoid warrior because I wasn`t born to be one. I am a Zoid warrior because it`s the only calling that can grant me what I crave.   
  
To be the best there is, the best there was, and the best that there ever will be.   
  
Along my journey I`ve left behind so many fallen Zoids, Red Blade isn`t the first Zoid I`ve piloted, but I hope it`s the last, even if it means being killed while piloting it.   
  
No, the first Zoid I piloted was actually a Gustav, the same Zoid that my father eventually traded in to make payments on the Hover Cargo he calls a mobile home. It was a good Zoid to learn on, wasn`t my favorite though. I went a few years without piloting, and then, the day after my mother died I climbed into the cockpit determined to make something of my life.   
  
The Zoid was a Shield Liger. I was seven years old.   
  
From that point on, I knew what I had to do, if only because life demanded that I become a scientist like my dad.   
  
And now, here I am, fifteen years later, sitting in front of a camp fire while my partner sleeps across from me.   
  
I didn`t mention that one, did I?   
  
Her name is Naomi Fluegel. We have things in common, interest in red colored Zoids, interest in fighting in the tournament, interest in everything, but not interest in each other. No, as much as most men would kill to even sleep _near_ her, I don`t even crave to sleep _with_ her. We`ve gotten to the point that we don`t even care about modesty around one another, I`ve probably become one of the only men who can say he`s seen Naomi Fluegel in the nude, but you know what?   
  
I don`t care about that. She`s the only woman I know who`s ever seen me in my birthday suit since the day I learned to dress and bathe myself, but she doesn`t care. We`re friends, and I`ve seen the way she looks at my former team mate, those two are probably fated to wind up together.   
  
I`m happy for them, but romance isn`t for me.   
  
I am a warrior.   
  
I don`t intend to stop fighting until I`m dead, crippled or at the top.   
  
If I live to the end of it, then, _maybe_ then, I`ll look back on myself in my old age and call my young self a total idiot.   
  
But for now that doesn`t matter.   
  
Naomi doesn`t matter in any way aside from our friendship and cohesiveness as a team. She feels the same way about me, we`re both virtually expendable to each other and we like it that way.   
  
We are both warriors.   
  
We both intend to keep fighting until we`ve achieved our goals.   
  
Our goals are opposite.   
  
Naomi just wants to be the best raptor-type pilot since the Revered Raptor, a goal that constantly put`s her at odds with my sister. Me?   
  
I want to be the best.   
  
And I`m not going to stop until I get there.   
  
Bit Cloud, Vega Obscura, Van Fleiheit, Raven, Reise, Irvine, Carl Schubaltz, Oscar Hameros, the Revered Raptor...   
  
Get ready, I`m coming to join you.  
  


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**Author`s Note:** And so ends our look into the mind of the most dedicated person of the Zoids/0 cast(in my oppinion anyway). Leave a review please!  
  
_Sh33p_ out.  
  



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